Eyes Don't Lie
by mtfrosty
Summary: Anakin's POV on his master's color-changing eyes.


_I've read a lot of stories that always comment on Obi-wan's color-changing eyes or his "blue-gray" eyes, and I've always been fascinated for some reason. So here's my take on how Anakin interpreted them, written from his POV..._

* * *

I remember being nine and first meeting him and his master when I was still on Tatooine. He seemed cold then, hard, emotionless. His master had been cool. He seemed like a big kid, always ready for adventure. I thought it was really cool when he grabbed Jar-jar's tongue that one night. He was so fast and I wished I would be that quick one day.

I never thought that man would die. He seemed invincible.

He died, but my master lived, killing the same man who had killed his master.

Even at the funeral pyre, he looked cold, uncaring. His face was a mask of stone, not betraying even a hint of fear or leaking the smallest tear.

It was that night that I learned how to read Obi-wan Kenobi, the Negotiator who could bend politicians to his will with his smooth words, who could stand in the middle of a field of droids and calmly deflect blaster bolts, who was infamously known for his sarcastic wit and poker face. His poker face couldn't fool me. I was one of only a few who knew how to read that man.

You had to read his eyes.

Because even if his face wouldn't betray anything or his words tell the truth, his eyes couldn't lie.

That night, at the funeral pyre, as he watched his former master burn, his eyes were burdened with grief. So much grief that it almost spread to me and consumed my small body. It brought me to tears, even though he didn't cry. That night, his eyes were a dull shade of gray.

A man who has eyes that change colors is a man easily read… but very few knew him well enough to know that his eyes changed colors.

I knew him well enough. After all, he was basically my father.

* * *

I remember being twelve and asking him when he would spar with me. His eyes would grow dark, almost black, and he would always turn away from me. He always refused, telling me to go find Master Drallig and spar with him. I could tell he hated himself for something, but I never knew until later what it was he hated himself for.

It wasn't until I turned fifteen and was finally old enough to go on missions with him that he told me. It had to do with that Sith, the one that killed his master. He cut it in half. He still wouldn't look at me, but I knew what to say. Here was a man who was far too hard on himself than he needed to be, and I knew just what he needed.

It was one of the first lessons he had taught me, about forgiveness. He said even Sith could be forgiven, so why couldn't he forgive himself? Well, no matter. I finally got him to look at me and looked into those dark, almost black eyes.

"I forgive you," I told him. Three simple words. I meant it too.

It was then that I learned why Obi-wan Kenobi was such a great master and why I was so privileged to be learning from him. It was because even though he was the master and I was the learner, he allowed himself to not only teach me, but learn from me as well. I remember him smiling at me after I said that. His eyes lightened up to that clear blue that I grew to love.

"Thank you, Anakin." He never was one to talk too much, so I had to learn to understand what he was saying with a small amount of words.

With those three words, however, I knew that he meant just what he said. Somehow, I was able to rid him of whatever burdens he had been carrying, and he was humble enough to thank me, to thank his padawan who was sixteen years younger than himself. Not many masters would do that even once. That was the first time he did it.

He thanked me quite a bit.

* * *

I went on my first mission with him when I was two weeks shy of my sixteenth birthday. It wasn't one of those first-time missions that a padawan would take to sort of ease themselves into the way of things. I was just put right into the action, right into the bloodbath that was the war.

I had always dreamed of being a legendary general, leading clones into battle and winning many victories. I dreamt that I would cut down entire battalions and wreak havoc on ion canons.

My dreams were shattered on that first mission.

After that, I never dreamed of being famous, or winning many battles in the war. I had nightmares instead.

Most of them were of dead clones scattered everywhere, their lifeless eyes always seeming to follow my every movement. I dreamt of ion canons that could blow holes straight through a giant building and destroy an entire army with just one shot. I often died in my dreams, only to wake up and realize I was still alive and breathing. It wasn't long before I actually wished my dreams would come true, that I would actually die and pass peacefully into the Force. That way I wouldn't have to suffer through this distraught world any longer.

After our first mission together, his eyes were never blue again. They always had gray in them. Often times they were only grey with not even the smallest trace of that bright, shining blue. They betrayed his grief, despair, and hopelessness even when his face wouldn't.

On the outside, he was the legendary general who was feared by the Separatists for his strategic prowess on the field. He was the man who could bring hope to even the most beaten down armies by simply just being there with them.

On the inside, he was lost. His eyes told the truth.

And because I could tell he was lost, I also felt lost. I kept fighting; _we_ kept fighting, and together we won many battles. Together we became the most legendary team out , we endured the pain and suffering.

We were lost together.

* * *

When I was eighteen, I secretly married Padme. He didn't know. Or at least I thought he didn't know.

Only a few years later, I would finally learn what I had been seeing in those distraught eyes.

On a fiery planet, lava exploding all around us, I would figure out that he had known all along, and that that look in his eyes had been one torn between love and duty. A love for his padawan that made him allow the secret marriage, and a duty towards the Jedi that should've caused me to be expelled from the Order.

His love won out. Unfortunately, that revolution wouldn't be enough to overcome the hate that had risen in me that day.

* * *

His eyes were dark blue when I was twenty. They were sad. That's the only word that accurately describes them. Just sad. Terribly sad. I guess they looked hurt too.

He knew of my frequent meetings with the Chancellor, which meant he also knew that I had been lying to him about them. I had been lying to him about my visits to Padme as well. He knew all this, but didn't say anything.

I guess I was hoping that he would confront me about it, show me that someone in this peaceful Order other than me was capable of feeling a little anger. That someone in this Order was capable of feeling anything at all.

He never said anything, and I knew he wouldn't. I was an adult now, and he treated me like one, allowing me to make my own decisions regarding how I wanted to treat those around me.

I knew how to treat my wife, I knew how to treat my clone troopers, I knew how to treat authority figures, and I knew how to treat my friends.

I didn't know how to treat the one man in my life who qualified as my father.

His eyes remained dark blue for a few weeks as he hoped that maybe I would come around and tell him all my secrets, learn to trust him as he trusted me. Eventually, the blue faded to that dull gray again.

He was lost.

* * *

I never saw his eyes go back to their natural color again. That shining clear blue that had shown frequently in my earlier years had receded to hide behind that dull gray. Since his eyes never changed colors anymore, my ability to read him deserted me.

Our brotherly relationship fell apart gradually yet quickly. It only took two years for it to happen. Two years and one tragic fight.

I hardly think anyone could have predicted that the Hero with No Fear and the Negotiator would one day fight each other to the death. Only one man could have done that.

The Chancellor. I had treated that man as my friend, listened to his advice, and followed his direction for at least three years. I had treated him as my father. I was a fool.

My true father had been standing at my side for over ten years.

I ignored him. I don't know who came up with that saying 'ignorance is bliss.'

Ignorance will eat you from the inside out.

* * *

His eyes flashed with a color I had never seen before. They were gray, blue, black, green, and maybe even a little yellow a few times.

No. Not yellow. Not him. He would never turn.

But oh he was angry.

There had been stories from some of the other masters about him as a padawan. How Qui-gon almost didn't train him because he was too angry. I believed them now. What I couldn't figure out was how he could be so angry, yet so light at the same time. It infuriated me and I only attacked him some more.

Those eyes were almost bursting with rage as he fought me, but it didn't transition to his fighting style. He fended me off as he always did in a fight. Calmly, patiently, and with an always calculating mind that would eventually allow him to beat me.

It was righteous anger, I concluded. It hadn't been directed at me; otherwise, I would've been dead before the fight had barely begun. He was that strong. I knew it, but most never cared to see the power he possessed. Maybe because he didn't show it off like I did.

His anger had been directed at the Chancellor, at the man who had corrupted me, twisted me into his little minion. He still saw me as the little boy he had met on Tatooine all those years ago.

I knew that, because as he sliced off three of my limbs, that flashing anger was replaced by overwhelming grief and despair.

For the first time since I had known him, I didn't have to look at his eyes to read him. The emotion had taken over his normally stoic face and was showing plainly for all to see. And then I noticed something else that almost broke through my hardened heart to the small part of me that was still Anakin.

He was crying.

I screamed three words at him before the fire consumed me. "I hate you!" Then he told me he loved me. That was the last I saw of him for many, many years. His words stuck with me, though. They were the only sliver of hope I had.

"You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"

* * *

Years later, on the Death Star, I finally felt his presence again. For some reason it infuriated me that he was still alive. I blamed him for the stupid suit, the stupid mask, for all four of my mechanical limbs. I even blamed him for the one that Dooku chopped off all those years ago.

I forgot about his final words to me. I had forgotten them after a few years had passed and he didn't come after me.

He just left me alone with my darkness and hate. He burned me over and over again. The burning never stopped, and I knew it wouldn't stop until I killed him. Until _I _killed him. It had to be me; otherwise the burning wouldn't go away.

I followed his presence until I rounded a corner and he was there. He wasn't the same man I had faced on Mustafar.

He was old and shriveled like a grape left too long in the sun. Age had not been good to him. He walked slowly, talked in a gravelly voice, and his hair and beard were all white. There were wrinkles all over his face and hands. His lightsaber had faded to the point where it was almost white.

Then I noticed his eyes. They were as vibrant as ever and still held that same fierce determination that he had back during his prime. And they were still gray… but the blue was beginning to emerge.

It was still there, after all the times I let him down, after I betrayed him in what was possibly the worst betrayal in the history of civilization. A spark of hope fluttered in the deepest depths of my mind, but it was quickly pushed back by the anger I had grown so accustomed to.

We exchanged a few words, empty words that held no meaning, because with us it had always been the way in which we looked at each other. We had shared a bond like no other master-padawan team in the entire Order. Entire conversations could pass between us with just a few glances at each other.

Despite the fact that that bond had long ago been shattered, I could still see it in his eyes. It was the truth that I saw. He still believed that I wasn't all the way gone.

He stood still, eyes closed, lightsaber raised in a silent salute, a tiny smirk on his face. Even as my lightsaber moved to cut him down, a slow ripple began in the Force and quickly grew louder.

The withered bond in the back of my mind, still tattered and frayed where it had been torn, suddenly pulsed to life and resounded with the sound of deep laughter.

He was laughing.

My lightsaber cut into him and he disappeared, but the laughter remained, as strong as ever. It was like old times, as if he was saying, _"The joke's on you, Anakin!"_

I could almost hear the words through the loud chuckles. I did hear them, in fact. In any other case, they would have angered me even more, but one word made my mouth quirk in what could almost be called a smile. I hadn't smiled in a long time.

He called me _Anakin._

* * *

_This was meant as a tearjerker so hopefully some of you shed a few tears. :) Please Review!_


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